A/N: So this is it, the final chapter.

Thanks to all of the wonderful people who have reviewed every chapter.

Peachuzois, reedusfan, mrskaz453 who have literally reviewed every chapter, you don't know how much it means to get that continued support and feedback.
And everyone else who reviewed along the way, thanks to you too.

Also a big thanks to Praxid, who made me write this story (seriously, she did!) and has had to go through several different versions of the plot and quite a few re-writes as well.

Enjoy.

They'd been at Woodbury for a week.

And today was going to be something special.

A sombre day for them all.

They'd been accepted into Woodbury when they arrived, told they would find safety and shelter here.

And the man who was apparently in charge, Milton, looked lost and confused and Rick knew that Daryl had been right about the lack of leadership.

Milton told them about Phillip and how he ran the town but when it slipped into the third day with no sign of him, the town had a meeting. Milton started it off, but Rick took over. Because reassuring people came naturally to him and he told them that they should continue with The Governor's plans for the town and hopefully, if he returned one day, he'd be pleased with their progress.

Winning over the townspeople had been easy. The guards were another matter.

But Rick, backed up with Andrea, Glenn and Maggie, as well as Milton who was firmly on Rick's side after a few days under the man's leadership, soon had a different agenda for them, with watching the walls and going for runs.

The building they guarded which held prisoners, one male and a female, were released. And the walkers they kept there were all destroyed.

Rick told the townspeople about them. About the walkers and the prisoners. There were no secrets in Woodbury now, he assured them.

The woman they'd held, Michonne, had her katana returned to her. Rick told her she was free to go at any time she wanted too, but hoped she'd at least heal for a few days. He confided in her that The Governor was dead and what had transpired between him and Daryl in the woods.

She realised the trust he put in her telling her something like that and appreciated it. Knew that this man was different to the previous town leader. She remembered the reaction of the man in the office, when she'd shown him the heads and she took Rick to it.

Until that point, he's not managed to get into The Governor's office. Someone else had retrieved the book for him with the towns plans in it, but he'd not been able to go in for himself.

Now, he was able to see for himself the things that the man did, along with several of the town's citizens.

He head a woman gasp and sobs came from her as she pointed to one of the tanks.

It seemed Daryl wasn't the only one to have family condemned to the tanks. Rick promised the people that all the heads would be removed from the tanks, destroyed and they'd be buried.

Woodbury already had a small Cemetery where they could remember people. But the disgruntled family who had thought they'd buried their dead already wanted something else, so Rick proposed a new monument, for all those people that the town had already lost, not for those merely buried here.

People relished the idea and Rick was a little overwhelmed by the names that people wrote down to be added to the monument.

The small idea soon became much larger as some of the men who had been craftsmen before the world ended took care of the monument.

The heads they retrieved from the tanks were buried the night before in the town square. And early in the morning, the workers erected the new monument to the towns fallen loved ones.

Rick had made sure all the people who had been in the group were added. All of them. Jim, Jacqui, Dale, Shane, Lori. No one was left out. Daryl and Merle were added with them.

Some of the men had gone on a run early that morning and had bought back two wooden benches which fit around the new monument perfectly.

When the whole thing was unveiled later that day, there was a sense of great loss around the town.
Not one person didn't have someone on that list, Rick was sure of it and while they all knew that this wasn't the end, that people would still get killed, it was a fitting end to this chapter of their journey so far.

Daryl's body was committed to the ground in Woodbury too.

Rick had refused to leave him in the woods and that night in the woods, Andrea hadn't gone far. She'd returned after hearing the gunshot and between them, they carried his body back to the prison.

They lay his body down in the back of one of the cars, covered him with a blanket and Rick had filled the others in on everything that had happened out there. And they'd left for Woodbury the very next morning.

And when Rick had found the graves, found Merle's, he knew that Daryl's rightful final resting place was there with his brother.

He wasn't able to do that straight away. But once he had the towns trust it was what he did.

Merle's head was buried with his body and Daryl was buried beside his brother.

And Rick knew he'd finally done right by The Dixon brothers.